


rinharuweek DAY 5 - Don’t go where I can’t follow (Everything went dark) Dystopia AU

by yakutatazuaho



Series: yakutatazuaho's rinharuweek entries (nov2014) [2]
Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dystopia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2018-02-27 10:21:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2689262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yakutatazuaho/pseuds/yakutatazuaho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world turned into a dark and polluted place and swimming almost disappeared completely but Haruka can’t live without water and Rin can’t live without Haruka.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rinharuweek DAY 5 - Don’t go where I can’t follow (Everything went dark) Dystopia AU

**Author's Note:**

> not really dystopia, more like something strange that has no sense + bad dialogue and nonsense whatsoever. Summary is an exaggeration. All the details were lost along the bad writing skills so it turned out as something confusing and meaningless. I didn't think I'd ever write something (at least somehow) depressing.

Haruka easily passed through the broken fence to the Iwatobi Swimming Pool. He didn’t need to sneak in anymore, because the place didn’t have any more rules, didn’t have an identity anymore. It was just an abandoned school like most of the buildings in the area. The sky was covered in a thin dust cloud as he looked up, although it was still in the afternoon. The recent eruption of a volcano kilometers away blocked the sky that seemed to have been the only blue remaining on the Blue Planet, and no one was surprised anymore, no matter what happened.

The ten years war ended, but it left Earth with the scars additional to all the blood shed on its land. Men didn’t stop with the pollution and the gun shots, causing nuclear disasters and oil reversing in the seas everywhere as ships were sunk when sailing across foreign seas. A chain of natural disasters amplified the terrors, as if materializing the grieving voice of the world.

Makoto found Haruka sitting on the fourth starting block with one leg dangling over the pool and the other close to his chest, wearing his swim gear. He didn’t flinch when the taller man called out to him, and Makoto wasn’t sure for a moment if he noticed him at all.

The wind blew gently pushing Haruka’s dark locks of hair as he muttered his late answer.

“Hi, Makoto.”

"You always come here, Haru. I knew immediately where to find you."

"I like it here", Haruka answered briefly, and Makoto wanted to sketch a faint sorrowful smile but stopped midway and looked at the empty and dirty pool and continued:

"You can’t swim here, Haru".

"I know", Haruka said in a low but clear mutter.

"Let’s go back already…You know you’ll never be able to swim here again…"

"I know!" Haruka cut him off in an obvious ticked off voice, still looking ahead at the ruins of the once vivid and lively poolside.

Makoto let out a quiet breath in a half sigh and turned his eyebrows upwards in a pained expression as he walked away saying that he’d wait for Haruka at his place as usual.

After his best friend left, the black haired man continued to look in the distance, remembering his past. He kept coming back here again and again, sitting in the same spot and reviving those memories where he was right in this place, swimming in this place in a clear and sparkling water among cheerful laughter and loud chattering. He revived those memories each time more vividly, as if trying to etch them into his very being, as if wanting to make sure he won’t forget. As if wanting to make sure they were real. With everything happening in the world over the last 10 years after his and Rin’s first step to their dreams, it was as if one day, everything went dark. And so suddenly, everything was gone, Haruka wasn’t even sure anymore if he’d ever experienced such bright youth days in this school, peacefully with his friends.  
————

Although the water in the Iwatobi pool was gone and dirt took its place settling in among the years, the sea was still there. Haruka would walk along the coastline and watch the waves crash into the beach and retreating, almost imagining that they’re calling him over. If he stood on the wet sand flooded by water as waves made their way on the shore, he’d feel his feet be pulled to the sea. He knew that it’s a normal physical phenomenon, but he couldn’t help feeling that the sea was calling him in a way or another. So sometimes, he would go for a swim in the rampant or quiet waves.

Today the sea was quiet, and Haruka was sliding on the water in the after twilight sky as the moon was rising behind him when Rin approached him and sit on the sand with his slippers hanging in one hand.

"Are you swimming again? How many times have I told you to stop it? Who knows whatever’s in the water. It’d be another thing if we were far at sea, but here’s not good".

Haruka just glanced at Rin and turned on his back to float with his eyes closed.

"Come on, get out. You’ve had enough."

"You can’t know when I got in". "

Makoto told me you left before noon, that’s proof enough you’ve been here for a while. Hey…you’re in trouble if they catch you", said Rin with a troubled expression.

"Don’t care", Haruka answered before sinking and preparing to start swimming again.

"You know we’re not allowed to alter water in any way."

"I’m not doing anything to it."

"Say that to them!" snapped Rin worriedly.

"Did someone follow you here?", the shorter man said stopping and standing with his feet touching the bottom of the shallow sea.

"I wouldn’t be here if someone were on my tracks!"

"You’re more wanted than a no-name like me right now" said Haruka in an attempted joke.

"Well, I knew they’d be surveilling me when I started the police academy. Sousuke’s seems unaffected by it though."

"Yamazaki did it for you."

"Huh?"

"Got into that school."

"That’s not it…anyway, being a cop now gives you many rights and liberties so you can profit off of it."

"He didn’t want to leave you alone".

"You know…I did it for you…" Rin said in a barely audible voice, not knowing if his desire to make Haruka feel safer when he chose this path came across to him.

"Hey…do you like swimming that much?" continued Rin hesitantly.

Haruka opened his eyes widely to look directly at Rin who was staring at the water ripples around the others’ body. He didn’t think he’d hear this from Rin of all people, and it hurt a bit to hear that voice say it in such a pained way.

"Why aren’t you swimming anymore, Rin?

Of course Rin loved swimming. It was his lifelong dream that was cut off too short. But he wanted to be a realist, and he wished to make a life of his own in this new world. He wanted a secure life by Haru’s side.

"You know, they let you swim in clear water if you race on TV. They’re trying to preserve the "sports is healthy" idea, at least in the minds of the people, if not in their bodies.

"You know I hate being bound", said Haruka simply.

"The sky, the sea, all the blue on this earth are bound. I just want to see again the same blue distance I saw with you all in the past."

Rin smiled bitterly and looked Haruka in the eyes. The raven haired boy couldn’t avert his gaze as they both stared into each others’ eyes. Rin squinted his eyes in an attempt to see Haruka better in the moonlight and said in a quiet voice:

"But your blue eyes aren’t bound by anything, are they?"

He looked at Haruka’s fuzzy reflection in the water and added:

I’d trade in swimming and the whole sky for them”. Rin coughed at his own sappy line and brought his legs close to his chest trying to hide his blush.

Haruka got out of the sea wetting the sand he was stepping on along his way, until he stopped in front of Rin. He tilted his head and tried to see Rin’s face that was still pressing on his own knees. The shorter man extended a dripping arm and gently touched Rin’s cheek with a finger and caught some hair locks turning them upside in a playful touch. He got on his knees and sand immediately stuck to his legs almost as if he was growing roots in that place, and cupped Rin’s cheek with a hand.

"Rin…" he said as he leaned in closer to the red head’s face and Rin raised his chin and slowly closed his eyes, allowing their lips to touch softly. He felt Haruka’s cold lips after swimming against his own.

"Haru.don’t ever go where I can’t follow…", Rin managed to say although this one line didn’t quite gather all of his worries and wishes for Haruka to keep staying by his side, no matter what becomes of their past selves.

"Rin, I’ll be right here."


End file.
